Are you a Pantser or a Plotter? by Marilyn Meredith

July 27, 2015July 24, 2015 ~ marilynm ~ 15 Comments

Recently I attended the Public Safety Writers Association’s annual conference and one of the panels was, “Are You a Pantser or a Plotter”. The attendees were a mixture of many law enforcement types, fire and emergency medical personnel, and of course, mystery writers.

Everyone who comes is a writer, or wants to be one. Some of the public safety authors are writing non-fiction, though many are writing mysteries.

When this panel was introduced, many in the audience had no idea what a “pantser” was. For anyone reading this post who also might not know, a pantser is someone who writers from the seat of their pants. In other words, they don’t do an outline of the plot before they start writing.

However, as the panel discussed the topic and who did what, it turned out that even the pantser did some planning ahead of time.

I’ve been writing novels, and mostly mysteries, for many years. When I wrote historical fiction, I did a lot of research and the research helped me with the plot of the book, though I didn’t actually do a chapter by chapter outline.

Now, with my mysteries, this is how I go about starting a new book.

First, because I write series, I know who my main characters are. I also know where I left off with their lives. What I need to plan is the crime(s) or mystery part which entails new characters:

Who will die? At least most of the time this is necessary. (In my last Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery, Violent Departures, the main mystery was about a missing young woman, the only murder happened years before.)

Who would like to see this person dead and why? Of course there must be more than one person who had the motive and opportunity.

With new characters, they must be named and described.

How is the person going to die? I try to come up with new ways to kill off my victims.

When and where will the first scene take place?

Once I’ve made these decisions—and I’ve written them down, I usually begin writing. I try to come up with a first sentence that will immediately intrigue a reader.

As I write, new ideas flood in. So I don’t forget something that may happen later one, I have a notebook beside my computer where I keep notes about everything pertaining to the book I’m writing.

So, though I don’t outline the complete plot before I begin writing, I do some initial planning, which I think means I’m a combination Pantser/Plotter.

For you other writers reading this, which are you?

Marilyn Meredith aka F. M. Meredith

http://fictionforyou.com

Writing Two Mystery Series

July 27, 2015June 27, 2015 ~ marilynm ~ 6 Comments

When I wrote Final Respects I had no idea it would be the first mystery in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. Once I’d finished, I really wanted to know what happened to the characters I’d created. The only way to find out was to write the next book. I’m now working on #12. Some have described the series as being a cozy police procedural. What that really means is I’m not too graphic when it comes to the crime scenes and though my characters probably do swear, I don’t quote them.

Rocky Bluff is a fictional small beach community in Southern California, located between Ventura and Santa Barbara. I’ve created an ensemble of characters who appear in each book, but the spotlight may move from one character to another. Each book is as much about what goes on with the police officers’ family lives as the crimes that confront them.

The latest book in the series is Violent Departures.

Violent Departures

The Deputy Tempe Crabtree series is now up to 14 books. This series found a publisher first, though both series have traveled from publisher to publisher for various reasons.

Tempe Crabtree is a Native American resident deputy in the Southern Sierra. She resides in the mountain community of Bear Creek, is married to the minister of the local church and she has a son, who by the latest book is an adult. At times Tempe relies on Indian mysticism to help solve crimes–something her husband frowns on.

Because I live in a place similar to Bear Creek and it’s located near an Indian reservation, I’ve borrowed a lot from our local Indians while writing these books, including their believe in a creature the call the Hariy Man who has similarities to Big Foot. He’s managed to appear in three books in the series, including the latest, River Spirits.

Most of these books are told from Tempe’s point-of-view.

Being fond of all of my characters, I love creating new problems for them to solve, both in their private lives and the mysteries that confront them.

You can read the first chapters of most of my books on my website: http://fictionforyou.com

And of course, they are all can be ordered from the publishers or Amazon.

Marilyn who also writes as F.M. Meredith

I’m on Facebook and Twitter as Marilyn Meredith

Guest Blogger – Lois Winston

July 25, 2015July 20, 2015 ~ patyjag ~ 10 Comments

Jim Phelps, Bill Cosby, and Atticus Finch

I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes lately, both real and fictional. I need heroes. The world needs heroes. Heroes help us make sense of the senseless and give us hope because they’re willing to take a stand to do what’s right in order to make the world a better place for all of us.

However, lately some of my heroes have been letting me down. It started with the reboot of Mission Impossible back in 1996. Anyone who remembers the television show from 1966-1973 knows that Jim Phelps was one of the good guys, a man who risked his life for the greater good of mankind. Then the first movie comes along and turns Jim into a bad guy. After that I never watched another movie in the franchise. No way could I accept Jim Phelps as a villain.

In 1984 The Cosby Show debuted, and Bill Cosby became America’s dad. My kids grew up watching that show. Bill Cosby lived part-time a few blocks from us. We admired the man not only for the character he portrayed on TV but for the real person and the good he did. I want to believe he’s innocent of the charges made against him, but the overwhelming evidence and his own words given in a deposition seem to prove otherwise. America’s dad has been shown to have a dark side. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement; I’m outraged.

And now it turns out that Atticus Finch is a racist. I won’t be reading Go Set a Watchman because I don’t want my image of that just and honorable man from To Kill a Mockingbird tainted by this older, hateful version of the character. I’m not the only one. Social media is aghast and atwitter over this unexpected and unwelcome reinvention of one of America’s fictional heroes.

So I began to wonder, do authors make a solemn pact with their readers, and what happens when they break that agreement? In many instances, they disappoint their fans. Readers expect a certain experience when they pick up a book from an author they’ve come to enjoy, especially when the book is part of a series. Authors who have killed off beloved characters or in some other way disappointed their readership have experienced unwelcome vocal backlash.

The fifth novel in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series is now available. I haven’t turned Anastasia into a villain, nor have I bumped off any beloved characters in the book. However, I have introduced a plot twist that I hope readers will enjoy. I want to live up to my readers’ expectations. I never want to disappoint them, and I hope I haven’t with this new installment.

A Stitch to Die For

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 5

The adventures of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack continue in A Stitch to Die For, the 5th book in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Lois Winston.

Ever since her husband died and left her in debt equal to the gross national product of Uzbekistan, magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack has stumbled across one dead body after another—but always in work-related settings. When a killer targets the elderly nasty neighbor who lives across the street from her, murder strikes too close to home. Couple that with a series of unsettling events days before Halloween, and Anastasia begins to wonder if someone is sending her a deadly message.

Buy Links

Paperback http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1940795303/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1940795303&linkCode=as2&tag=loiswins-20&linkId=LBEMP6U7TVMCBQMT

Kindle http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010M9U5Q2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B010M9U5Q2&linkCode=as2&tag=loiswins-20&linkId=ZRX4XIA2N5VX6ARK

Nook

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-stitch-to-die-for-lois-winston/1122259040?ean=2940150965928

iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-stitch-to-die-for/id1014678389?mt=11

Kobo

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/a-stitch-to-die-for

Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Lois_Winston_A_Stitch_to_Die_For?id=XZEbCgAAQBAJ&hl=en

(Other books in the series include Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, and three mini-mysteries: Crewel Intentions, Mosaic Mayhem, and Patchwork Peril.)

Bio: USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Visit Lois/Emma at www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Follow everyone on Tsu at www.tsu.co/loiswinston, on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/anasleuth, and onTwitter @anasleuth. Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.MyAuthorBiz.com/ENewsletter.php?acct=LW2467152513

On the Trail of Inspiration

July 23, 2015 ~ Amber Foxx ~ 1 Comment

Some of my friends here think I’m crazy. Not because I’m any more peculiar than most people in Truth or Consequences—that would be more difficult than the odd thing they question, which is running at noon. In the desert. In July.

It’s much more pleasant than it sounds, though it would have been hell in June before the rains came. Now the temperatures are in the upper eighties or low nineties, with a few little storm systems flirting with the mountains, and no one around except the quails and jackrabbits and lizards. Snakes are hiding from the midday sun, and all the humans are out on the lake. That’s the way I like it. Not that I have anything against snakes, but I prefer not to meet them—or my own species—while I run. I want to be alone. It may look as if I’m only exercising, but actually, I’m writing.

With my train of thought taking a crooked path between lizard sightings and admiration of quail chicks, cacti and the rain-promising sky, I get creative. At the beginning of the run I pick a plot problem and turn my mind loose to play with it. Something about the free flow of running breaks mental dams. Key lines of dialog and important character goals arrive, ideas that refused to show up at my computer the night before. Snake Face has a lot of music in it, and all of those songs came to me on my favorite trail in Elephant Butte Lake State Park, complete with melodies no one will ever hear.

Over the past couple of years, someone has had the urge to make art along that trail. First, there was the miniature Stonehenge. Now there’s a spiral of pebbles presided over by a bulbous lava rock that looks like the Venus of Willendorf with a few too many endowments, and another that looks remarkably like a fluffed-up bird. The bird rock faces out, with its clutch of egg pebbles nearby. The fertility goddess squats on a large flat rock overlooking the spiral. All along the trail I keep noticing additional smaller arrangements, such as a square white rock placed in the center of the square red patch on a larger white rock. I find light green on dark green, bright yellow on dark brown and gold, all sorts of little rocks arranged on shape-and-color-compatible members of the community of stones marking the trail’s boundaries. These creations required time and thought and close observation.

As I wondered how long they took and try to picture the person behind them, a plot puzzle I was struggling with resolved itself. These little henges and heaps are going to find their way into the book in progress, perfectly suited to a certain character and his needs. Art meets art on the trail of inspiration.

Mysteries that take you places

July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 ~ janegorman ~ 3 Comments

Warsaw’s Royal Palace dominates one bank of the Wisła River. It has been a royal residence and cultural center, a site of devastation and of hope. It is also where Łukasz Kaminski was left to die.

The Royal Palace marks the easternmost edge of the Stare Miasto, Warsaw’s Old Town, a cobblestone-paved area that stretches west toward Warsaw’s modern business district. Scars etched into the walls of the palace paint a picture of a long history, showing repairs, additions and changes wrought upon the structure over the past seven centuries.

I use the Old Town as the opening scene in A Blind Eye. One of my characters, Łukasz Kaminski, has been beaten and left for dead. As he slowly recovers—both his strength and his memory—he makes his painful way through the Old Town to the Royal Palace. The photograph on the book’s cover shows the scene, looking at the Palace from across the Wisła River.

It’s a fascinating place, and well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Warsaw.

The Great Tower was erected in the fourteenth century and the palace expanded significantly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was a royal residence, the place where parliamentary deliberations were held and the administrative and cultural center of the country. Like so many places in Poland, however, it suffered through wars and partitions.

Once a site of great artistic collections, its art and artifacts were looted. In the nineteenth century, during the partitions of Poland, most of the collections ended up in Russia. Only some of the collections were returned when Poland regained its independence.

World War II brought yet more destruction. Warsaw’s Old Town was devastated during the war, the Royal Palace no exception. If you’re on Pinterest (and I know it’s not for everyone), I’ve pinned some images there showing the brutal impact of the war on the built environment.

The decision to rebuild the castle was made in 1971, but funds were solely lacking. The Polish people came together to rebuild. I remember my mother telling me about her childhood in Poland, collecting used tin cans to send back to Warsaw for the rebuilding effort. Every little bit helped. Thanks to the dedication of the Polish people, the needed funds became available in 1980. In 1984, the reconstructed interiors were opened to the general public. Here is a photo of my family (many years ago) in front of the Royal Palace and another of my mother in front of Zygmunt’s Column in the Old Town.

The Royal Palace is just one of the many fascinating places I explore through fiction. I’ll share more in future posts. How about you, what wonderful places have you visited through the joys of reading?